Danny Ferry | Forward

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Danny Ferry has been hired by Pelicans' GM Dell Demps to serve in a special advisory role on his front office staff.

"I am excited to announce Danny Ferry has accepted our offer to join the New Orleans Pelicans basketball operations staff as a special advisor," said Demps. "Danny’s experience, insight and achievements will be a welcomed addition to the Pelicans as we continue our quest to improve the team." Demps and Ferry have a strong relationship from their days together in San Antonio, and Ferry will help Demps with the big-picture strategic planning for the New Orleans franchise. Jun 8 - 11:55 AM

Danny Ferry is reportedly in the mix for the Nets general manager job.

While this could be nothing more than whispers, Ferry joins John Calipari and Bryan Colangelo as rumored front-runners for the Nets gig. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov has said the search for a new GM will be exhaustive, so it looks like assistant GM Frank Zanin will be in charge of any trades before the February deadline. Jan 14 - 10:12 AM

Follow the link below for full details of the investigation conducted by the Hawks—which included more than 24,000 e-mails—and cleared Ferry of any actions motivated by racial or ethnic animus. Additionally, Ferry said that he felt "relieved" in the sense that all parties could move forward. Mon, Jun 22, 2015 12:16:00 PM

Danny Ferry’s comments about Luol Deng were not motivated by racial bias, according to an investigation performed by the law firm Alston and Bird.

The letter from Friday says it found statements repeated from a scouting report were not motivated by "racial, ethnic, or country of origination bias or animus" by Ferry. To find this information, the investigation included e-mails, background reports and interviews, and 24,000 documents. Sat, Jun 20, 2015 05:53:00 PM

Player News

Danny Ferry is reportedly in the mix for the Nets general manager job.

While this could be nothing more than whispers, Ferry joins John Calipari and Bryan Colangelo as rumored front-runners for the Nets gig. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov has said the search for a new GM will be exhaustive, so it looks like assistant GM Frank Zanin will be in charge of any trades before the February deadline.

Follow the link below for full details of the investigation conducted by the Hawks—which included more than 24,000 e-mails—and cleared Ferry of any actions motivated by racial or ethnic animus. Additionally, Ferry said that he felt "relieved" in the sense that all parties could move forward.

Danny Ferry’s comments about Luol Deng were not motivated by racial bias, according to an investigation performed by the law firm Alston and Bird.

The letter from Friday says it found statements repeated from a scouting report were not motivated by "racial, ethnic, or country of origination bias or animus" by Ferry. To find this information, the investigation included e-mails, background reports and interviews, and 24,000 documents.

The Hawks have reached a buyout agreement with GM Danny Ferry that will effectively end his partnership with the Atlanta franchise.

The agreement will reportedly pay Ferry more than he would have made on the remaining three years of his contract, which is an interesting note. Ferry was on indefinite leave with the Hawks after a recording surfaced of him allegedly making insulting comments about Luol Deng during a conference call. Assistance general manager Wes Wilcox will now step into the GM role in Atlanta.

Danny Ferry is likely to resign as the Atlanta Hawks GM by the time the new ownership group takes over on June 24.

The logic here is that the new ownership group likely doesn't want to deal with the bad press from Ferry's infamous quote regarding Luol Deng, so a mutual parting between the two seems like the most likely scenario. Mike Budenholzer and assistant GM Wes Wilcox are expected to be the key decision makers in Atlanta once Ferry is officially ousted.

Danny Ferry reached out to hall-of-fame center Hakeem Olajuwon to apologize for his racially insensitive remarks about Luol Deng.

"He’s been calling all the players to apologize," Olajuwon said. Olajuwon also expressed his belief that Ferry was indeed reading a scouting report, and the racially inflammatory things said were not Ferry's words. "Those were not his words. He did not mean it. He was repeating something. I did not know what he meant. I don’t know what someone was thinking to say that. But those are not his words." Ferry has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the Hawks.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Tuesday that the city of Atlanta will help to ensure the Hawks stay in the city when they are sold, suggesting the city could contribute $150 to $200 million to make it happen.

The city lost the NHL's Thrashers and the Braves (moving to nearby Cobb County) under Reed's watch and he clearly wants to avoid a trifecta. The sale of Turner Field, where the currently Braves play, would also be an important piece of the puzzle, giving the city more money to work with. At this point, it doesn't sound like there's much chance the Hawks will be moving out of Atlanta, especially since the city is willing to help make sure it doesn't happen. In other Hawks news, legend and potential buyer Dominique Wilkins will have a statue unveiled at Philips Arena next March.

Hawks CEO Steve Koonin sent out an open letter to apologize for the ongoing developments surrounding general manager Danny Ferry and Heat forward Luol Deng.

The letter talks about the team's shortcomings and how angry Koonin is with how everything happened. Carmelo Anthony said he thinks that the Hawks may have trouble signing free agents in the future, but the team is trying to improve. They're going to hire a Chief Diversity Officer and will strive to be even better in the community. The letter is attached in the link below.

Carmelo Anthony said on Saturday that future NBA free agents will be hesitant to sign with the Hawks based on statements from general manager Danny Ferry.

"[There] ain't nobody [who] would want to go there," Anthony said. "At the end of the day, Atlanta, I think it puts Atlanta back even further now, from that standpoint." Ferry had some interesting comments on Melo, saying he would "absolutely" be worth $20 million per season if he was used the right way. Ferry is on an indefinite leave of absence and his future with the Hawks isn't looking great.

The Atlanta Hawks announced on Friday that current GM Danny Ferry will be taking an indefinite leave of absence.

Hawks CEO Steve Koonin made the announcement, stating: "Danny Ferry requested, and I have approved, taking an indefinite leave of absence." As Ferry steps down, coach Mike Budenholzer will be tasked with running Atlanta's basketball operations department. This could be the last we see of Ferry in the NBA, but with the controversy surrounding his exit, there won't be many bemoaning his departure.

Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has obtained the alleged scouting report on Luol Deng, and it does include the African comment.

The part of the report in question reads: "He is a good guy on the cover but he is an African. He has a little two-step in him = says what you want to hear but behind closed doors he could be killing you." It doesn't really matter that the report had the racist comment, because part of GM Danny Ferry's job is to filter these reports and provide the team with only the most relevant portions. Ferry did not need to repeat these comments, and what he said wasn't even verbatim of this report, so it's difficult for him to argue that he was simply "reading" what was written. It will be interesting to see how this situation shakes out in Atlanta, but things aren't looking good for the current GM.

The audio tape of general manager Danny Ferry on a conference call was released on Thursday.

He did not say that he was reading a background report nor did it sound like he was reading anything. In other words, it sounds like the comments about Luol Deng were thoughts from Ferry, and not from a scouting report.

Commissioner Adam Silver doesn't think that Danny Ferry's comments surrounding Luol Deng over the summer should cost him his job.

"The discipline of a team employee is typically determined by the team, and in this case the Hawks hired a prestigious Atlanta law firm to investigate the circumstances of Danny Ferry's clearly inappropriate and unacceptable remarks," Silver said. "In my view, those comments, taken alone, do not merit his losing his job." Ferry could still easily lose his job, but there's also a chance he'll be allowed to apologize and stay on with the Hawks. This has been a brutal PR summer for the NFL and NBA, and it would be nice if Ferry's situation could be resolved as soon as possible - whichever way the cookie crumbles.

More details have surfaced about Danny Ferry's controversial comments surrounding the Hawks' recruitment of Luol Deng.

In a transcript obtained by Yahoo! Sports, Ferry was extremely critical of Deng's personality in the locker room and with the media. "For example, he can come out and be an unnamed source for a story and two days later come out and say, 'That absolutely was not me. I can't believe someone said that," Ferry said on a conference call with ownership. He also downplayed the positive affect Deng has in a close locker room. "Good guy in Chicago. They will tell you he was good for their culture, but not a culture setter. He played hard and all those things, but he was very worried about his bobble-head being the last one given away that year, or there was not enough stuff of him in the [team] store … kind of a complex guy." These comments, along with racially insensitive remarks about Deng's African heritage, have landed Ferry in hot water, and could cost him his job.

Depth Charts

No revenge game for Jrue against his former team. Holiday's turf toe injury can linger, so the Pelicans will play it safe. His injury history also may have factored into this because compensating could lead to another injury. With Jrue out, Tim Frazier should start while Langston Galloway gets additional run at the point. Buddy Hield should pick up extra minutes, as well.

That's his second straight DNP. With Moore out, Buddy Hield should get more run at shooting guard while Langston Galloway and Tim Frazier could run some two-guard combos. Plus, this should help Solomon Hill pick up extra run at the three to help offset the loss of wing depth.

Tyreke Evans (knee, calf) is expected to stay behind for the upcoming two-game road trip to rehab his calf injury, according ton Jen Hale of the Pelicans broadcast.

The good news is that his right knee is good to go. Evans is going to have a limit upon his return and he still doesn't have a target date. It may a month or so until we see Evans putting up noteworthy numbers, so he's not the greatest stash in shallower leagues. He's also very likely to rest on back-to-back sets for a long time.

Quincy Pondexter (knee surgeries) is still not close to getting back on the court.

"Quincy’s probably going to take a little bit longer than [Tyreke Evans to return]," Pelicans' GM Dell Demps said. "We’ll get a better determination on Quincy probably in about two weeks." With Evans' looking at a potential December return, it sounds like Pondexter might not get back to the court until sometime in January. He doesn't offer enough upside to warrant a hold in any setting.

Dante Cunningham (knee) has been diagnosed with a non-displaced right proximal fibula fracture and is expected to miss 4-6 weeks.

The Pelicans said he wasn't expected to miss much time, but they didn't know Cunningham suffered a fracture from banging knees on Wednesday. Cunningham's playing time as a starter was trending up with around 30 minutes per game recently -- he does only have a 12.0 usage rate this year. While he was out on Wednesday, Solomon Hill started the second half and is likely to be starting going forward. They also used a lot of three-guard lineups with Jrue Holiday, Tim Frazier and Langston Galloway. Frazier should be owned in standard leagues, Galloway is a short-term pickup for 14-team leagues and Hill is worth a look for owners with something to cut in deeper leagues.